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Play in the City 2013
![Anne Dalke's picture Anne Dalke's picture](https://serendipstudio.org/exchange/files/pictures/picture-39.jpg)
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Welcome to the on-line conversation for Play in the City, an Emily Balch Seminar offered in Fall 2013 @ Bryn Mawr College, in which we are addressing the question of how we construct, experience, and learn in the act of play. How is play both structured by the environment in which it occurs, and how might it re-structure that space, unsettling and re-drawing the frame in which it is performed? This is an interestingly different kind of place for writing, and may take some getting used to. The first thing to keep in mind is that it's not a site for "formal writing" or "finished thoughts." It's a place for thoughts-in-progress, for what you're thinking (whether you know it or not) on your way to what you think next. Imagine that you're just talking to some people you've met. This is a "conversation" place, a place to find out what you're thinking yourself, and what other people are thinking. The idea here is that your "thoughts in progress" can help others with their thinking, and theirs can help you with yours. |
Who are you writing for? Primarily for yourself, and for others in our course. But also for the world. This is a "public" forum, so people anywhere on the web might look in. You're writing for yourself, for others in the class, AND for others you might or might not know. So, your thoughts in progress can contribute to the thoughts in progress of LOTS of people. The web is giving increasing reality to the idea that there can actually evolve a world community, and you're part of helping to bring that about. We're glad to have you along, and hope you come to both enjoy and value our shared explorations. Feel free to comment on any post below, or to POST YOUR THOUGHTS HERE.
![Grace Zhou's picture Grace Zhou's picture](https://serendipstudio.org/exchange/files/pictures/picture-1264.jpg)
the failure of a fantasy
Before I truly read the “hopelessly hardened” about the Eastern State and step into this “groundbreaking” penitentiary, I was so convinced that the prisoners lead hard lives in the cells and behave so well in order to get out of the hopeless darkness and damp. Born in a family with father as judge and mother as lawyer, I was always told how desperate lives in the cells are- prisoners can’t fall asleep on rock-like beds, have limited time to see their family and once a prisoner told my mom that he only wanted a blanket in the winter and the chilblain he got in prison prohibited him from doing anything. At that time,I thought the penitentiary is so cruel that it is not a place for helping people to confess and change,but an inferno that destroys humanity. So I was so pleased and optimistic when I get to know that Eastern State is a pioneer in reforming incarceration.
![Phoenix's picture Phoenix's picture](https://serendipstudio.org/exchange/files/pictures/picture-1269.jpg)
Hopelessness
Phoenix
Mlord
Play in the City 028
Hopelessness
Eastern State Penitentiary is a crumbling heap of rock and iron. While, in its heyday, it was a marvel of prison technology, the methods are today understood to be cruel and inhumane. Cells were designed to cut off all interaction, except with the guard, who wore wool socks over their shoes so as to minimize the sound of their footfall, and with the preacher, who attempted to convert them to Protestantism. There was nothing to do except work, and if one attempted to communicate with other prisoners, he or she was punished.
ESP was a marvel of technology. It had a revolutionary heating and plumbing system not present even in the White House at that time. Thick walls prevented prisoners from speaking to one another, for ESP was not intended to be an ordinary prison. Rather than just house criminals, it would isolate them, induce self-contemplation, and lead to repentance. ESP was a pioneer in the pursuit of reforming prisoners through isolation. Its creators believed that prisoners in solitude would come to terms with their crime, repent of their sins and go on to live more wholesome lives. The design of ESP forced prisoners to spend time examining their own hearts, and, ideally, to pray for forgiveness. It provided prisoners ample time and silence to think over their wrongdoings.
![tflurry's picture tflurry's picture](https://serendipstudio.org/exchange/files/pictures/picture-1274.jpg)
The Failure of Eastern Penitentiary
Eastern state was built as a place for prisoners to come to terms with their crimes, to pray in solitude for forgiveness. Now all that remains is an eerie building, a skeleton of the failed experiment: Eastern State was more torture or prison than reform center, which effectively tried to break prisoners down mentally with silence and solitude. Imagine how much smaller, lonelier, life must be when one’s only hope for diversion comes from the guards, the preacher, or the thin hope of making contact with other prisoners; solitary confinement can quickly make a person go mad. It is understandable, then, why inmates worked so hard for the rare opportunity to communicate with the other prisoners. In the end, the goals of the prison unrealized and the rules ignored or out dated, Eastern State Penitentiary was nothing more than an experiment that failed.
![pialikesowls's picture pialikesowls's picture](https://serendipstudio.org/exchange/files/pictures/picture-1268.jpg)
Dependence
I could see the lonely walls, which have witnessed too much. I could see the abandoned floor, which has been victim of pacing and madness. I could see the abused door, which has been the tool of solitude and punishment since 1829. I could see the Eye of God, but didn’t feel as if that could save me. I felt the bulge of my smart phone in the back pocket of my jeans. Resisting the urge to check if I had any messages, I sighed and looked around the room for the umpteenth time. My time in the Eastern State Penitentiary was merely a fraction of what the prisoners in the past had spent; however, in this day and age, with technology and our decreasing attention spans, it felt as if I was in there for months.
Our dependency on technology makes it difficult for us to stay still for long periods of time. These days, it is almost impossible to go a day without consulting some kind of machine or device. Letters have been replaced by emails, which have been replaced by text messages. Instead of waiting seven days to receive a letter from a friend, we now only have to wait seven seconds. We have developed an intolerance of anything that takes longer than a few moments, and this is why half an hour alone in a nineteenth-century prison cell seems like such torture to my generation.
![playcity23's picture playcity23's picture](https://serendipstudio.org/exchange/files/pictures/picture-1273.jpg)
On Isolation and Prison Reform
Eastern State Penitentiary is the most harrowing place I have ever been in. I walk into one of the wings and it’s like I have stepped onto the set of a post-apocalyptic film. The silence is so thick, it’s like pea soup. I could feel my breath whistle through my ears. Tomahawk and I stepped into one of the preserved cells. I trace the lonely bed frame and shiver as I look up to the skylight, aptly named the Eye of God. Steve Buscemi, the narrator of the audio guide we were listening to, tells me that the prison guards wore felt booties over their shoes so the prisoners couldn’t hear them stomp by. I peek out onto the row again and look at the cells with closed doors. Though I am sure my mind is playing tricks with me, I swear I can hear indistinct whispering and shuffles coming from the closed cells. I could feel the mental decay and despair the inmates felt when this place was in operation. I fold my arms over my stomach and shrink back into the cell.
![clarsen's picture clarsen's picture](https://serendipstudio.org/exchange/files/pictures/picture-1258.jpg)
ESP
Eastern State Penitentiary’s Quaker reformers had high hopes to create one of the first revolutionary and successful prisons of their time. Their model was the largest and most expensive ever erected and soon inspired other prisons and jails across the world. It’s grand gothic architecture was successful in isolating prisoners and minimizing contact between inmates. Eastern State was the first prison to offer heating and plumbing in every cell, a luxury not even available to the President in the White House at the time. Beforehand, prisons treated inmates with extreme physical punishment and labor. Eastern State took on a new approach where they left criminals alone in their cells to contemplate their wrongdoings and repent. This horrible neglect did not produce the results that were highly anticipated, however. Much more torture than privilege, criminals were forced to remain alone in their cell without contact or communication with the outside world.
![Samantha Plate's picture Samantha Plate's picture](https://serendipstudio.org/exchange/files/pictures/picture-1270.jpg)
Psychological Deterioration in Solitary Confinement
Samantha Plate
Play In The City
11/10/2013
Solitary confinement. Two words today known as one of the worst types of punishment. However, back in 1829, solitary confinement was thought to be the solution to crime in America. Reformers thought that they could help criminals rather than merely punishing them. They hoped this brand new prison system would be the start of a great reformation across the country. However, human nature is not made for solitary confinement. The conditions of the prison began to cause a huge detriment to both the prisoners and the workers. Both groups had to struggle to keep from growing insane, causing an even bigger tension between the two groups. However, once the prisoners and guards realized that they weren’t all that different, they were able to work together to create a better environment for the both of them.
![Amy Ma's picture Amy Ma's picture](https://serendipstudio.org/exchange/files/pictures/picture-1254.jpg)
ESP
Eastern State was an eerie place, not necessarily having the effects on its prisoners it hoped to.This doesn’t work well-most of prisoners have no ability to read and spend their time (which is what they got) in trying to communicate with their neighbors. Eastern State Penitatiary seemed more like a place to cause someone to go mad rather than teach them to reflect I see a complete disregard for the humanity of the prisoners.Communication can’t be stopped.Small sense of satisfaction that it failed because of its unrealistic goals.
![Mindy Lu's picture Mindy Lu's picture](https://serendipstudio.org/exchange/files/pictures/picture-1276.jpg)
Eastern State
Eastern State tried to mentally break me down with silence and darkness. Eastern State was a lonely, maddeningly quiet and boring cell, and unproductive waste of his time. Eastern State Penitentiary is an unusual prison where inmates rarely have the chance to communicate with others, which makes me try to find ways to talk to other inmates more. From the POV of Samuel Bruster, an uncooperative prisoner sentenced to five years of solitary confinement, ESP is a place where if you follow the rules and life a life in solidarity, it will drive you mad, as these conditions are not humane.
The original design of Eastern state forced people to really look into themselves and their actions, alone in a cell with nothing to do but explore your own mind allows a person to form a new perspective on themself. The cell is cold and a little bit smelly. I am afraid and do not want to stay any longer at all. The grey walls around me make me feel lonely and constrained. Eastern State seemed more like a place of torture than reform. Solitary confinement can quickly make a person go mad, so I understand why Eastern State had so many problems, especially after getting a short glimpse at what the prisoners experienced.
![Cathy Zhou's picture Cathy Zhou's picture](https://serendipstudio.org/exchange/files/pictures/picture-1256.png)
doubtful
Is it practical?
A dream that one point lived on but now has closed to face a new era.
It was corrupted over the years not by loose morals and flagging ideals but by the sheer pressure of numbers.
It's only a place which made people want to keep away from.
It might be easier or safer for some of them to stay in jail.
Flawed from the start.
![Taylor Milne's picture Taylor Milne's picture](https://serendipstudio.org/exchange/files/pictures/picture-1272.jpg)
ESP
Eastern State Penitentiary was an innovative attempt at changing the very hearts of prisoners, but which failed to take into account the role of kindness. It is a place where prisoners try to fight against isolation, which is meant by the builders in order to make the inmates contemplate and reflect towards reformation. It started out as an attempt to reform individulas but even now the corruption and evolution of corruption is visible in the empty space. I see how everyone lived and cannot imagine how they managed to stay alive—the conditions this place holds serves to no ones sustainability to survive. Eastern State Penitentiary now looks the way it made the prisoners feel: empty, broken, and alone. Eastern State was a prison unlike any other, where the methods were so damaging to the human spirit, and was so radical that the fascination that came with the prison was far greater than the suffering.
![lksmith's picture lksmith's picture](https://serendipstudio.org/exchange/files/pictures/picture-1263.jpg)
Eastern State Penitentiary
ESP was a place where they believed prisoners in solidarity would be able to repent for their sins, so that upon their release they would live more wholesome lives. Eastern state penitentiary is an exemplary pioneer in the pursuit of reforming prisoners through isolation. It should work cause the nature of human beings is kindness, so as long as they stay alone and contemplate, they will eventually find the way to their true heart. The Eastern state not only punish the prisoner, but also save them.
Solitary confinement was not a situation to be accepted without a fight. From the POV of Samuel Bruster, an uncooperative prisoner sentenced to five years of solitary confinement, ESP is a place where if you follow the rules and life a life in solidarity, it will drive you mad, as these conditions are not humane. The solitary confinement was not going to make him a better person, it would just drive him mad. He had to be uncooperative to give himself something to do.
![Phoenix's picture Phoenix's picture](https://serendipstudio.org/exchange/files/pictures/picture-1269.jpg)
I saw the hopelessness in the eyes of the prisoners.
Eastern is a relic, a decrepit pile of rocks and metal. While in its heyday it was the height of prison technology, it was, in many ways, utterly inhumane. [Cells] smaller than they should have been, particularly for housing two people, and designed to cut off interaction with others- that is torture. Eastern State is a lens into the past, showing the beginning intentions of incarceration in the US and how they changed. It’s an inspiring and illuminating pioneer in reforming the prisons although it failed.
Eastern State was a prison unlike any other, where the methods were so damaging to the human spirit, and was so radical that the fascination that came with the prison was far greater than the suffering. Eastern State is not successful. Treating prisoners so cruelly with isolation will only drive them madder. ESP was a place you wouldn’t want to end up in lest you enjoyed the company of your own criminal soul and the judging eye of god. Prison reform in Eastern State was one of the cruelest and severe. Prisoner’s lack of communication and isolation did not aid in improvement but rather inspired rebellion. Eastern state was a cold, somewhat menacing, but still contemplative, cell, separated from everything.
![nightowl's picture nightowl's picture](https://serendipstudio.org/exchange/files/pictures/picture-1260.jpg)
Sentences
Conflict of silences. Flawed from the start, ESP is a decaying island that stands as a reminder of the suffering it caused. Gone are the tiny insanity-inspiring chambers, replaced by shared-chambers capable of providing a life to their inhabitants. It was not a luxury to live in it, to be confined to your thoughts. The communal spaces and open water could only do so much to cleanse the place of its past. Eastern State Penitentiary now looks the way it made the prisoners feel: empty, broken, and alone. The endless and repeating days are terrible. Conflict of silences.
Conflict of silences. It is ridiculous and useless. Why are these visitors visiting? For prisoners inside, it’s not much different: no freedom, isolated, frustrating, desperate and somehow made the lonely people more aggressive. How is it possible that people can really be penitent in this mentally torturing condition? It’s not going to make a difference for the guilty, in such a place of fear and loneliness, nothing could evoke their mortality when they’re in torture. With all the daily introspection on my crimes, I know I would have gone crazy within the first week. The isolation is the punishment actually in this place. I cannot imagine if I stay in such place day by day without talking. Conflict of silences.
![mmanzone's picture mmanzone's picture](https://serendipstudio.org/exchange/files/pictures/picture-1265.jpg)
Eastern State Penitentiary
Eastern State Penitentiary is the humane and right way to reform criminals. To give inmates a chance to do contemplation, to think, to reform themselves. A place of aesthetic beauty from outside. A place of silence and regret from inside. No cruel punishment so as not to make them feel hated or unaccepted by the society, so that they could return to the society and be decent citizens. A dream that one point lived on but now has closed to face a new era. Disappointment. The original idea of build such prison is good. But the truth is, it overlook the prisoners' crazy behavior. Today, it stands as a symbol of our dashed hopes. It was corrupted over the years not by loose morals and flagging ideals but by the sheer pressure of numbers. I see the overcrowding, the understaffing as a complete disregard for the ideals of this place.
![tflurry's picture tflurry's picture](https://serendipstudio.org/exchange/files/pictures/picture-1274.jpg)
A Prison Found
Eastern state was a place for prisoners to come to terms with what they’d done, and to pray in solitude for forgiveness. Eastern State was an eerie place, not necessarily having the effects on its prisoners it hoped to. Eastern State was more torture or prison than reform center. Easter State tried to mentally break me down with silence and darkness. Life would seem scarily smaller, with low outlook on life, and the only hope for change relies on people coming by. Solitary confinement can quickly make a person go mad, so I understand why Eastern State had so many problems, especially after getting a short glimpse at what the prisoners experienced. Eastern State Penitentiary is an unusual prison where inmates rarely have the chance to communicate with others, which makes me try to find ways to talk to other inmates more. Eastern State cannot change me or control me, the “new prison” is just like all the rest and I will defeat it.
![Frindle's picture Frindle's picture](https://serendipstudio.org/exchange/files/pictures/picture-1262.jpg)
Eastern State
There are still hundred of thousands of prisoners today kept in dungeons, medieval-like conditions, for years, huge portion of their lifetimes, with nothing but conditions for their brains to to rot, be warped, and emerge with hatred, anger, and frustration toward the world. It might be easier or safer for some of them to stay in jail. But I could feel the misery and insanity of these place and it was suffocating.
It was not a luxury to live in it, to be confined to your thoughts. It is very much the same; it is harsh and unforgiving. The endless and repeating days are terrible. But sitting here for 5 years, isolated, dark, lonely, I really want real life. It seems prisoners became more like objects to be placed somewhere than people who needed reforming. The isolation is the punishment actually in this place. I cannot imagine if I stay in such place day by day without talking.
Conflict of silences. Communication can’t be stopped. It has all passed.
![pbernal's picture pbernal's picture](https://serendipstudio.org/exchange/files/pictures/picture-1261.jpg)
Gluing Pieces Together
To give inmates a chance to do contemplation, to think, to reform themselves. For prisoners inside, it’s not much different: no freedom, isolated, frustrating, desperate and somehow made the lonely people more aggressive. Even the building itself is decaying, like all these past objects have the structure of enclosure and abuse and falling. These two things (great conditions and to be pentitent) are irrelevant, and may lead people to thinking committing a crime isn't a big deal, because prison isn't too bad anyway. But I could feel the misery and insanity of these place and it was suffocating.
![Everglade's picture Everglade's picture](https://serendipstudio.org/exchange/files/pictures/picture-1277.jpg)
Locked in My Own Cell
It is very much the same; it is harsh and unforgiving. These wall that used to be crisp white are falling down, the whole structure of the building is decaying. It has all passed. A place of aesthetic beauty from outside. A place of silence and regret from inside. A faint vibe, reminiscent of the true horrific conditions of this institution.
I see a complete disregard for the humanity of the prisoners. Eastern State Penitentiary is the humane and right way to reform criminals. In such a place of fear and loneliness, nothing could evoke their morality when they’re in torture. It's easy for one to think over and reform and contemplate. Conditions for their brains to be warped, and emerge with hatred, anger, and frustration toward the world. Disappointment. Flawed from the start. Unrealistic goals. I am bored this doesn't hold my attention either.